We all have that one favourite website / blog we keep going back to for detailed information. There are times when we goto the site / blog and see that their are no new updates available.

How would it be if the website itself told you everytime their was a update or a new post by a author. Awesome right? Bingo. Thats RSS for you. Acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. Some others call it “news feeds” or the best one is “Subscribtion”.

RSS comprises of 2 components :

1. An RSS feed,
2. An RSS aggregator or news reader.

How it works? Simple. You need to install the RSS aggregator on your website and then point it to an RSS feed. Your websites page will then contain news headlines or updates of the site you have subscibed to.

There are 2 places where you can find a website’s feed :

1. In the browser,
2. On the website.

For using the Browser, you need to co-ordinate between your browser and your feed reader. Your feed reader will have appropriate instructions to set up your browser.

On the website, a feed can be seen as an icon. They are mostly orange in colour; It’s as simple as copying the link of the RSS feed and pasting it in the RSS reader. And the updates are seen immediately.

Subscribe to RSS feed / via Email :

This is the simplest option of all. Most of the sites have a field wherein you can enter your email id and the updates will be mailed to you on that email id. I have made my rss feed using Google Feedburner. Absolutely easy to use. All you have to do is, create a googe account, enter your website/blog address, Click on -burn a feed. UR DONE!! ITS THAT SIMPLE!! Copy the link they provide and paste it in your website at the appropriate place and the functionality will resemble as in my website.

Some free RSS readers available are Google reader, Bloglines.

Another free RSS Aggregator available online is Netvibes.

I will soon compile a list of free RSS readers and aggregators, RSS Icons so that you get a variety of options to choose from.